Good Days Can Happen...

Good days can happen. My kids were great today. Attentive, participative and cooperative. Well, they were great until 2:35, when, after summoning their focus to look good for a pop-in visit by my principal and reading coach, they collapsed into a heap of chit-chat. But I was pretty okay with that. The only problem is, I don't know why they were so good!!! Except for our weekly P.E., which I worry was at the core of their good work, I'm going to try and recreate today as best as I can tomorrow.

---

Even days like today have a dark underbelly. Generally, when the whole class is doing well, problem individuals rise to the surface in spectacular form. F---, my Michael Jackson star, wrote "My life is worthless." on a piece of paper in response to a conversation where I asked him to produce work that he can be proud of. M---, who I have given enormous leeway to in an effort to get him to buy in to my class, is completely losing it, refusing to do work, refusing to not call out, refusing to sit in his seat! I know he's dealing with huge issues (mom in jail, moved to new school, dad had stroke, grandma-figure died this month) but there's only so much I can let him get away with before the other kids start to complain and imitate.

Weekly Vignettes

This blog is too negative and self-absorbed, let's take a turn towards the kids.

A---, a newcomer who's been in the U.S. for a year. As his language improves I am very quickly coming to discover that he is a little crazy. I gave the kids Shel Silverstein to work with during English Language Development time. Read and practice for one day, then perform. A---, who usually struggles through any text, learned to read his part and then decided to sing it. The source of his music and inspiration are wholly unknown. Imagine a 4'2" 10 year old latino Tom Waits singing, "What's in the sack.. what's in the sack, they always ask me, what's in the sack..."

An intercepted note read: "I think you are died to me. I just woat to tell you that M--- want to be your friend. If this is what you want t..."

Highlights of another intercepted note: "Brandon! I don't want to get with you. I'am to young to have a boyfriend. [Damn straight! -AEC] People are buging me about you and me. Tell you and your friends to stop telling me. You are a 6th grade and I'am in 5th grade."

F---, future member of the three Latino tenors. Officially, he plays and sings in the mariachi band, but I know he has a deep passion for Michael Jackson. When no one else is around, we sing "Billy Jean." He also does a mean rendition of "Thriller." He's promising to dress up in a werewolf costume for H--- Day (one can't even say the word Halloween in my room) and perform for the class. On Friday I found out he's drafted three girls to be his back up dancers.

Smelling blood...

Perhaps the most amazing quality of 5th graders, and I suspect students as a whole, is their ability to smell blood. I was told that I would be attending training today and tomorrow but instead arrived this morning to hear that they could not find a sub for my class and I would be teaching as usual. I was a little tired from a long night of preparing detailed lesson plans and writing a paper and I hadn't mentally prepared myself to teach, but I was happy not to turn the reins over to a stranger and to start the new week with my students. I thought they wouldn't pick up on my lack of psychic readiness.

No no. They came in chargin' and it was crazy all day.

Other teachers contend that it's probably just the usual Monday craziness + the first rainy-day of the year looniness that made my class go bonkers, but I suspect they picked up on my unbalanced mood. It's not the first time they've done it. When I'm tired, when I'm burnt out, when I'm distracted, they react, as a frighteningly homogenuous entity, very quickly.

So it leaves me in a terrible quandry:

Sleep early and go to school happy but unprepared. Be eaten alive in the down moments of inefficiency.

Sleep late, and go to school prepared but burnt out or tired. Suffer the wild swings of a class that feels they have an ounce more power than usual.

Kids these days, there's just no pleasing them.

Updates...

Me

For better and for worse, I feel like the improvements made in my class, as a whole, now depend on me. Individuals, I have come to realize, will have their good and bad days based on an infinitude of factors almost completely out of my control. They might bring down a few neighbors or friends, and in sufficient numbers, could change the outcome of a whole day, but the week-to-week tenor of the class, ---the pace, the programs, the procedures, are now up to me.

I feel unable to rise up and meet this challenge. I don't know whether it's sheer tiredness, lingering sickness, burn out, my broken computer, my district-bought-back weekend, a lack of exercise or simply a poor perspective, but I'm not starting the day with the enthusiasm and presence I feel I need, and I'm not coming home with the readiness to plan and prep to perfection.

Part of me wants to forgive myself for being human, part of me says, "Get to work, buddy boy, you wanted a job that counts, and now you got it."

Them

J--- is probably not being beaten by her parents.

A-- is starting to do his homework. I don't know why, but I'm going to cheer it on.

A-- , a newcomer of 1 year, raised his hand today during our word knowledge review and offered to spell any word on Friday's test. He nailed "bumblebee" and "leather" before I moved on.

We finished Maniac Magee. Most of my students refused to believe it was over. Very vocally. They demanded I show someone the end of the book to prove it was really over. I couldn't tell whether they just didn't want the story to end, and their shock and cries of frustration stemmed from the novelty of finishing a really entrancing work, or if they are just used to the clear-cut, absolute finales of Hollywood. Maybe a little of both. But! But! We did have an excellent discussion of why we liked the book afterwards. C--- branched out beyond "cool" and knocked my socks off when she described Maniac as "So free and so alive."

Any suggestions on the next read aloud text? We're going to do some poems to stall through the end of the week.